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There was controversy about it, but the Inuit famously and really do have at least 50 words for snow. The Scots have 241!
The Sami people of northern Scandinavia and Russia use more than 1000 words for reindeer.
Sanskrit, the language of the Kama Sutra, offers 267 words for love.
Languages tend to evolve to reflect the cultural and practical priorities of the societies that speak them.
This linguistic truism came to mind recently when, as part of research for one of my cartoons, I turned to Google Translate in search of a French translation for the English word “geek.” There wasn’t one. Nor in Spanish. All the Romance languages came up short; Google suggested “disadattato” in Italian, but that’s different — it means “misfit,” or “a person who is poorly adapted to a situation or environment.”
A “geek” — “a person often of an intellectual bent who is disliked,” according to Merriam-Webster — is decidedly distinct from a misfit.
You can tell a lot about a culture from its language. I had stumbled across a revealing peculiarity about American English: we insult people for being intelligent.
That’s not true about most of the rest of the world.
At least among Western cultures and compared to many others, we Americans enjoy the dubious distinction of having a high degree of linguistic diversity it comes to mocking the smart and the educated (who, I can attest as the expellee-cum-graduate of an Ivy League school, are not always the same).
Bookworm. Brain. Brainiac. Dork. Dweeb. Egghead. Freak. Grind. Grub. Longhair. Nerd. Poindexter. Pointy-headed. Smarty-pants. Techie.
Esoterically, doubledome.
You have to journey far away from the areas dominated by the Indo-European language group in order to find direct equivalents of words like “nerd.” On the other hand, languages like French are extremely rich in insults for stupid people: “bête comme ses pieds,” or “dumb as hell,” literally means “as stupid as his/her feet.” Apparently this derives from the fact that feet are the body part furthest away from your brain. More zoologically, “blaireau” (badger) refers to an idiot.
When you think about it — which, being American, we rarely do — it should come as little surprise to realize that few insults string the French more effectively than being called stupid. France, after all, is a country with a 385-year-old parliamentary body composed of academics and other notables who rule on the usages, vocabulary and grammar of the national language, the Academie Française, and where one of the most popular television programs in history featured intellectual authors smoking like chimneys as they ruminated over the cultural and political controversies of the day, “Apostrophes.” After food and wine, the French worship the life of the mind.
The United States, on the other hand, elected Donald “Celebrity Apprentice” Trump over Hillary “I Have a 12-Point Plan” Clinton.
Bush over Gore.
Ike over Adlai. Twice.
As CUNY Professor Deborah M. De Simone notes in her essay discussing Richard Hofstadter’s classic Pulitzer-winning book Anti-intellectualism in American Life, the 2000 Democratic nominee’s IQ proved divisive: “Al Gore was both mocked and applauded for the depth and manner of his oratory while George W. Bush was both ridiculed and embraced for his unsophisticated vocabulary.” A reporter assigned to cover Gore’s campaign complained about getting stuck with “the government nerd.”
Bush wasn’t really stupid. The point is that he pretended to be, and rather convincingly. After losing an election in Texas, young Dubya had sworn, Scarlett O’Hara-like, never to get out-countrified again. Bush won reelection in 2004, in part because voters infamously told pollsters they’d rather drink a beer with him than with the more intellectual “French-looking” John Kerry.” (Talk about dumb! Bush was a teetotaler.)
Trump won the beer poll question during the 2016 presidential campaign. Like Bush, he doesn’t drink.
Europeans make fun of dumb people.
Americans elect them to high office.
Despite the rise of Silicon Valley and its technoelites, the Revenge of the Nerds in the South Bay has managed to line stock portfolios without moving the needle on America’s cultural values. Jocks still rule high schools that spend millions on new football stadiums while starving the arts. Faced with foreign policy crises, even “liberal” Congressmen reflexively endorse bombing over diplomacy in order to look “tough.” Scientific geniuses like the late Stephen Hawking are framed as cultural curiosities to marvel over rather than heroes to be emulated as are football players, rappers and movie stars (specifically buff men who act in action movies).
One can reasonably argue over which country, the United States or France, is superior in various respects. But how, as we transition to an information-based economy, can we doubt that elevating intelligence as a sociocultural ideal is, well, smarter than elevating buffoons?
Maybe it’s time to take a cue from our proudly pro-intelligence and pro-education cultural cousins across the Atlantic. Point at President Trump and other public figures whenever they say anything that sounds less than intelligent, and laugh at them. Not only for being racist, rude or insensitive — but just for being stupid.
Dumber even than their feet.
Americans are so ignorant they even think they’re the only ignorant people in the world.
They are among the best at it, you have to admit
There was controversy about it, but the Inuit famously and really do have at least 50 words for snow.
Well, already lost me here. Inuit have at least 50 words TO DESCRIBE snow. Like cold, powdery, white. English has probably just as many. The Inuit don’t have 50 different words to say “snow”.
I think they count it because their language compounds the adjective together with the noun, so “powdery snow” is one word, “icy snow” is another, “wet snow” is yet another, etc. At least, that’s what I’ve read in past discussions where this has come up. I don’t speak Inuit. Hell, as an American, statistically on average I speak less than one language.
I’m not Inuit, but living in a snowy Canada area made me understand the different types of snow. We didn’t have peoper words for the distinct types but Inuit would because it is highly important when traveling on it or seeking refuge in it.
And, if I recall, they use compound words, similar to German.
I’m insulted how little effort the author put into supporting his thesis.
“Streber” in German is a common insult if you’re good in school, and it often meant social death in class. Sure, geek and nerd have become commonplace and are used as German words now, but that’s also because if you are one your English is good enough and it’s just easier to use the short word from another language that pretty much all geeks and nerds use than to use the German one.
It has actually not really the negative connotation that the English word has, it feels more like a name for a subculture, like goth.
Geek and nerd are now like that too, in the last ten to fifteen years. They used to be insults, now it’s a subculture.
Geek and nerd had negative connotations when geeks and nerds were commonly poor, but then things shifted and, notably with the rise of the Information Age, being a geek and/or nerd turned into being useful in becoming wealthy. Now it is a compliment.
True of all insults, really. Same reason, for example, words with connotations to slavery are considered insults. Or those related to those who sell sexual favours. Again, the implication is that one is poor. Any words you can throw at someone who is rich will be something most people will want to wear as a badge of honour.
Schlaumeier
Chinese have similar words for “nerd”: “书呆子”, literally translated to “book doofus”. However, It is not used nearly as common as “geek” and “nerd” in English.
It also has a much thinner scope. It only refers to people who are too dogmatic about theoretical knowledge, yet lacks real world skills.
Same thing in (some variants of) Spanish. You have ñoño, someone who is always trying to outperform the others academically, usually it’s those who make a huge effort without seeing proportional results for it.
But we have very few insults for intellectual or smart people. Practically none I can think of.
“Friki” was popular when I was a teen, but that comes from the English, “freak”. And obviously we use nerd and geek sometimes.
Arguably, though, friki is more about the media and entertainment the person consumes than about them being smart.
it’s interesting you narrow the definition like that, because i think that’s really the original definition of nerd… like if you asked someone in the 50’s in the US, that’s what they would have described… someone who takes theory to anti-social extremes… but like you said, it seems to cover a lot more now, or at least get used a lot more…
and i love how literal “book dufus” is, that’s great
I enjoy the fact that the phrase used to make fun of “smart people” uses extremely simple words.
It only refers to people who are too dogmatic about theoretical knowledge, yet lacks real world skills.
Should definitely make an English word for exactly that.
Then I know what to call that fucker who keeps asking retarded questions at the end of a meeting where everyone else is in agreement.
oh no, a lot of the time, “book dufus” actually need to be well-versed in theoretical knowledge, I doubt “people asking stupid question at the end of the meeting” fit that description.
I’m talking about the people who get caught up on little details and hypotheticals which are irrelevant, just asking “what if” for the sake of it and wasting everyone’s time
Should definitely make an English word for exactly that.
We have! Teacher.
There is a French word for geek : “Tronche”. You would use that word like this : " ce que tu fais c’est vraiment tronche"eaning what you are doing is very geek.
Never used it as adjective ! but as a noun. It’s definitely depreciative. Not always, but often.
This is not true at all, anti-intellectualism is common across the world.
As common? Of course that would be hard to quantify. Trying to, by examining language use is an interesting idea, though.
I really wish Canadian culture didn’t follow America’s on this point.
I legitimately don’t believe that Americans generally dislike smart political candidates, but instead have grown to distrust those same candidates because their intelligence is mostly used to deceive.
After decades of faux-concern-for-national-wellbeing, it’s understandable really. Along comes someone who incorporates fake populism and preys on the unfounded, uneducated fears of many. That person, either haphazardly or intentionally (my money is on the former), exposes the deep-rooted corruption on the American federal government.
Thanks for the book report on it, Poindexter
lol where’s the nearest trash can… we’ll show this nerd…
The resentment behind the terms is scarcely concealed and bursts forth especially when commenting on those who are both smart and educated — a combination that is totally repulsive to many. I see that, but I don’t understand it.
Would have been a much more coherent article if it just discussed pervasive anti-intellectualism (it was so weird seeing Republicans start to throw out intellectual elite as a perjorative) without trying to draw tentative, at best, contrasts with other countries.
elite
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism
Almost any us vs them division works for this if you can sell the idea. Even completely fictional ones.
We have many insults for geeks in the Netherlands, the word Geek, ‘Gek’ or ‘Geck’ comes from our regions…Nederduits
*Scots have 421 snow-related words apparently
The 2006 video documentary “Idiocracy” covers the results of this phenomenon.
Interestingly, there are video campaign ads on YouTube for 2024 presidential candidate Dwayne Camacho.
